1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laminated wood ball bat, especially for baseball and soft ball, and a method of making the same. The bat is constructed of a plurality of thin wood veneer strips extending longitudinally in generally parallel relation throughout the length of the bat which are bonded together throughout their facing surfaces. The method of forming the bat includes the steps of placing large sheets of thin wood veneer in stacked relation in the cavity of a press with glue being applied to the contacting surfaces of the stacked sheets of veneer. The press exerts pressure on the veneer sheets to densify and compress the stacked sheets while the glue is cured to form a large laminated panel having a thickness of half bat billets. One surface of each half bat billet panel can be optionally grooved to form a core in the hitting zone and a recess receiving a reinforcing rod in the handle. Two half bat billet panels are then placed in a press cavity with the facing surfaces being glue coated to form a laminated full thickness bat billet panel which is then cut into substantially identical square bat billets. The laminated square, cured bat billets are then formed into the desired bat configuration in a lathe and a final finish is applied.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wood baseball and softball bats have been used for many years and usually are constructed from a billet of cured Ash wood formed to proper dimensional characteristics by the use of a lathe in a well known manner. Availability of the raw material used in making wood bats has materially diminished and the cost of the raw material has materially increased resulting in efforts to construct ball bats from alternative materials. Hollow metal bats of aluminum have been developed and are in wide use, especially at subprofessional levels. Also, efforts have been made to construct ball bats of laminated wood components as well as other composite materials.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,460 discloses a wood bat constructed of four longitudinal quarter billets with each billet having a square transverse cross-sectional configuration. The longitudinal quarter billets are glued together to form a square composite billet which is subsequently shaped to a desired bat configuration. This patent discloses in great detail how the physical characteristics of the bat are obtained.
In another U.S. Pat. No. 4,572,508, a laminated wood bat is disclosed which is constructed of a plurality of wood plates with layers of carbon fiber webs impregnated with a resin sandwiched between the plates. Also, the plates are joined together along their facing surfaces by dovetail interlocking ribs and grooves. The plates are relatively thick in that four plates are disclosed to form the bat in this patent.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,114,144 discloses a wood composite bat having a central core of foam plastic or aluminum, an inner layer of resin impregnated fiber and an outer layer of longitudinally extending strips of veneer laid in side-by-side abutting relation to form the outer contour of the bat without overlap of the strips.
Other patents are also of interest, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,165,686 and 4,199,632 and Finnish Patent No. 22649. The prior art does not disclose a bat constructed in accordance with the present invention, nor the method of forming the laminated wood bat by assembling a plurality of large sheets of wood veneer into a glued stack billet panel which is then cut into laminated bat billets.